Maul’s painting hobby turns into small business

Gillian Moore
Staff Writer

“I will sketch it out on a canvas and then do base colors and then slowly add in more detail as time goes on.  I always save the nose and the eyes for last because it’s the most important part of the picture,” senior Macy Maul said about her process for her pet portrait painting business.

A lot of students tend to just have jobs either at a fast food chain or up the mountain, but there is at least one student who–in addition to her other part-time job–runs her own painting business.  During this past summer, Maul could be found at the Sandy farmer’s market on Fridays trying to get clients.

Now, she has so many orders that she had to make an announcement that she would not be taking more orders until after Christmas.

“I’ve always been really into art and started just doing simple sketches and then slowly working up to painting.  I just started doing paintings for my parents of our pets and my family members.  They went and told their friends about it and then I made it into a business,” Maul said. The average price per piece is $60.

Her dedication and passion for painting has helped her to complete roughly 100 commissioned paintings.  As they each take about six hours to complete, on top of school and her other job, she is kept busy.

“I specialize in pet portraits, so people commission me to paint their pets and I do acrylic paintings for them on different size canvases,” Maul said.  She started this business endeavor around the beginning of COVID in 2020.

“So someone will get ahold of me and we’ll work out the canvas size, background color, and price.  Then they’ll send me pictures of dogs or cats or horse or whatever animal and I will sketch it out on a canvas,” Maul said.  One time, a lady wanted Maul to paint her donkeys, although she never followed up with her to complete them.  

Maul is a successful side-businesswoman, entrepreneur, and artist who looks forward to more days of painting various species of cats and dogs and is hoping to become a vet tech when she graduates college.